Define Diagnostic Overshadowing
when a health professional makes the assumption that the behaviour of a person, with learning disabilities or mental health issues, as part of their disability without exploring other factors such as biological determinants.
Identify the 3 D’s
- Dementia
- Delirium
- Depression
Why aren’t we good at spotting Diagnostic Overshadowing?
- High pressure environment
- Lots of decisions to make
- Rarely go back and look at results of decisions
- Rarely get case by case feedback
- Clinical supervision hard to access
- No blame clinical setting
- unconscious bias
What can healthcare professionals do to avoid Diagnostic Overshadowing?
- Good communication
- Think holistically ( circumstances and the bigger picture )
- Making reasonable adjustments
- Appropriate sharing of information
- Involve those who know the patient the best.
What is Delirium?
It is an altered state of consciousness which can occur when people are under acute stress, they are intoxicated, they are in great pain, suffering from an infection or extremely disorientated in a new setting
Give a broad definition of Dementia
The loss of cognitive functioning: - Thinking - Remembering - Reasoning to the extent that it interferes with a person's daily life and activities
Define Psychosis
It is defined as a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
What are hallucinations?
- False perceptions
- They are sensory: hear, smell, touch or taste
- They are when we can sense something but nothing is there
What are illusions?
- They are misperceptions, we think we see something but it turns out to be something else.
Name the 3 most common types of hallucinations:
- Sensory Deprivation
- Sleep Deprivation
- Voices
Give an overview of Charles Bonnet Syndrome
- It is a relatively benign experience of immersive visual hallucinations often experienced by those losing their eyesight.
- It can include complex visual hallucinations that take over all of someone’s visual field.
- Believed to be a result of the shutting down of the visual cortex as people’s eyesight falls.
What are the most common drugs that can cause hallucinations?
- Alcohol
- Cannabis
- Cocaine / Amphetamines
- Opiates
- LSD / DMT / Psylocybin / Mescaline
Define Thought Disorders
It describes a series of behaviors where the person’s ability to focus or think are impaired.
Identify common words/ positive symptoms used to describe thought and speech disorders
- Pressure Of Speech / Flight Of Ideas
- Circumstantial / Tangential Speech
- Perseveration / Clanging / Verbigeration
What does Pressure Of Speech / Flight Of Ideas mean?
- Very rapid speech that sounds as if it has little or no punctuation
- Jumping from topic to topic
- Unable to concentrate & speak about one thing
What does Circumstantial / Tangential mean?
- Every answer includes a long story that may or may not answer the intended question.
What does Perseveration / Glanging / Verbigeration mean?
- When speech is related to sound rather than content.
- They might repeat one statement or become trapped repeating one word over and over.
Define Delusions
They are fixed false beliefs ( or highly unlikely beliefs ) that are not explainable through social context or culture
Define Paranoia
- It is the most common form of ‘delusional thinking’
- It refers to a person’s experiences of: fear, anxiety and mistrust of others.
- General state of hyperarousal and anxiety about the risk of harm or threat to themselves.
Define Delusions Of Persecution
- When someone believes that they are being harmed by something that is either provably not true or highly unlikely to be true.
Define Grandiosity
When someone behaves and may also believe themselves to be much more capable, talented, unique or superior than they actually are.
Define Delusions Of Grandeur
When someone believes that they really are something they are not.
Define Ideas Of Reference
They are a form of delusions where people interpret everyday experiences as having a special significance for them in particular
Define Over - Values Ideas
It is a term used for when an idea is held strongly, but not strongly that is it considered ‘delusional’
